In process control systems it is very important to keep production running at all times as even a minor halt in production will cost large amounts of money. Because of this, maintenance is seen as very important in order to keep the production up and running.
One useful tool provided for local maintenance in a process control system is described in SE1300138.
Maintenance can be very expensive as it is sometimes necessary to bring in external experts to help with advanced operations the regular personnel might not have the expertise to handle by themselves.
Collaboration over a telephone line between the local worker and the expert is not effective enough in all situations as the expert is not able to see what the local worker is doing. Sending pictures back and forth is also a slow way of sharing information. The expert may need to see what happens on site and may need to be able to instruct the personnel on site without the risk of any misinterpretation.
In such situations it is beneficial to transfer video of the site to the external expert. It is then also possible to zoom in a camera in order to obtain details at the site. However, then it may be hard to retain the context. It may thus be hard to retain an overall view.
Three-dimensional models have been known to be used in various situations.
WO 2012/018497 describes a system where a three-dimensional model of images of a scene of interest is forwarded to a number of handheld computers. Images of a scene are obtained, and provided to a central device that provides the 3D model and exports the model to the handheld devices at the scene.
US2010/0315416 discloses a system where there is a central computer with a 3D model. In the system cameras are used to capture images of an object, which images are transferred to the central computer and combined with a 3D model.
DE 102011085003 discusses importing digital images into a virtual environment, which virtual environment is a 3D environment.
WO 2011/008660 discusses the transmission of positional information of a video camera in a video stream.
However, none of the documents discuss the use of three-dimensional models for improving the context of a video stream.
There is thus room for improvement within the field, especially when providing a context for a captured video stream.